Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Benjamin List and David MacMillan for a technique to build molecules

Scientists David WC MacMillan and Benjamin List are the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of a tool for building molecules, organocatalysis, announced the Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

The winners have developed “a new and ingenious tool for the construction of molecules: organocatalysis. Its uses include research into new pharmaceuticals and it has also contributed to making chemistry greener, ”according to the Academy.

The Swedish academy recalled, when announcing the award, that researchers generally believed for a long time that there were only two types of catalysts available: metals and enzymes.

This year’s winners “developed a third type, asymmetric organocatalysis, which is based on small organic molecules.”

This technique if “It has developed at an astonishing speed. Using these reactions, researchers can now more efficiently build anything from new pharmaceuticals to molecules that can capture light in solar cells. “added the academy.

List (Frankfurt, Germany, 1968), it was asked whether a complete enzyme was really needed to obtain a catalyst. To do this, he tested whether an amino acid called proline could catalyze a chemical reaction. “It worked brilliantly,” the members of the Swedish academy noted.

MacMillan (Bellshill, United Kingdom, 1968) for his part, he worked with metal catalysts that were easily destroyed by moisture. He wondered if he could develop a more durable type of catalyst using simple organic molecules. “One of these proved to be excellent at asymmetric catalysis.”

This year’s award follows the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to scientists Emmanuelle Charpientier and Jennifer Doudna for rewriting the “code of life” and “developing a method for genome editing.”

The british award MacMillan and to german List It is the last among the scientific awards of the Nobel round, after the Medicine award was revealed on Monday and the Physics award yesterday. The nobels have relapsed this year only in men, seven in total.

The announcements of the Nobel prizes will continue on Thursday with that of Literature, on Friday that of Peace will be known and next Monday that of Economics.